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Former deputy prime minister John Manley will take over as the chief lobbyist for Canada’s blue-chip chief executives, starting in January of next year. Manley was named Thursday as the incoming CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, succeeding long-time head Thomas d’Aquino who is leaving after nearly two decades on the job.

Thomas D’Acquino was no particular favourite of mine, and installing Manley in here should theoretically make the group more “liberal”. However, Manley hasn’t exactly publicly done the Liberal Party many favours recently. He also is a definite big business/corporate Liberal, which is the reason why he’s been […]

Just a brief follow-up to my previous post; If John Manley ever DOES get brave and actually decides to run for the Liberal leadership rather then snipe from the sidelines and kneecap his supposed current party, and Andrew Coyne decides to resign from Maclean to be his press secretary or media relations guy, these 2 posts of Coyne (practically begging Manley to run to stop this dastardly coalition with the NDP, and to run a.. I don’t know.. Joe Lieberman type campaign) should be read so as you’re not completely shocked by Andrew’s career move.

So, John Manley has decided to come out this morning in the Globe saying we Liberals should all just forget about any coalition with the NDP. One of my fellow Liberal bloggers seems to think this is somehow a case of sanity prevailing. I disagree.

First, the unified opposition and the threat of defeat is the ONLY reason Harper backed down from most of his provocative stuff in the now dead Economic Update. Mr. Manley seems to have forgotten that small fact. I believe that coalition needs to be intact come January 26th, or Harper will feel less pressure to revamping his Budget toward the Coalition’s position (the threat of […]

I’m referring to whether Mr. Manley might now regret accepting Harper’s request to do a “non-partisan” panel report on Afghanistan. My asking that question stems from reading in Haroon Siddiqui’s Sunday column in the Star where he refers to the Afghanistan mission still being as clear as mud. Look what Mr. Manley has had to say recently about the Conservatives efforts to implement his report:

Amid all the Tory self-congratulation, there’s nary a mention of the civilian measures called for by both the John Manley panel and the House of Commons resolution extending the mission to 2011. Whatever happened to the idea of Harper heading an interdepartmental group to get development and reconstruction efforts back on track? Or engaging regional powers, such as Pakistan, to find a political settlement? Or leaning on Hamid Karzai to seriously tackle corruption and nepotism and wean the Afghan economy off the opium trade? ,,, “Insurgencies are rarely, if ever, resolved by military means,” wrote Manley recently. “So, Canada should encourage political reconciliation” and minimize the factors that fuel the insurgency. He was bemoaning that his report “has been reduced to the simple proposition that Canada should stay in Afghanistan if NATO provides an additional 1,000 troops. “If that’s the only aspect that receives attention, our panel’s efforts will have been in vain.”

Many in the progressive blogosphere felt that this panel of Manley’s was chosen to ensure it would give a report supportive of keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan. Manley appeared happy to comply, though it now appears he thought he could convince the Conservatives to look at other aspects of the mission besides military means and troops. I’m not sure why he is surprised that those aspects of the report are being ignored and/or shunned. This was a panel designed for political points, not real reform. I think anyone who was looking at this from afar knew the Cons. were going to handpick what they liked (get a minimum # of foriegn troops to say to Canadians we’re getting help, and to stay in Afghanistan) and ignore what took them to task.

Mr. Manley should have been/should be smart enough to realize that. If he really feels strongly about this ignoring of most of his report, what he needs to do is go on the media circuit like he was doing after his report was released and emphasize to Canadians what the Cons. are not doing.

Would you like to ask Mr Manley why his final analysis in his Afghanistan Panel report seems to mirror every conclusion he came to when he wrote a policy report as a private citizen back in October? Would you like to ask why no one who was critical of the current mission in Afghanistan allowed on the panel, or various other disturbing questions that seem to indicate the outcome was a fait accompli?

Well, thanks to Jennifer Smith at Runesmith’s Canadian Content for passing along the info that John Manley will be on CBC’s Cross Country Checkup and taking calls at 4 pm EST today. I suggest if any of […]